The long road home

I walk fast on the uneven street, dodging other pedestrians, a cup of hot chai in hand to keep me warm. I always walk fast. And I am always cold.

You were always warm and you almost never walked fast because you wore stilettos. You wore stilettos even though they made your legs hurt because otherwise you looked too short next to me.

The only reason I slow down at the corner of Elm and First, where there always is someone looking for a handout, is to wait for the walk signal, staring at it as if that would expedite the signal to change.

You would have stopped to spare some change. It’s easy to overlook but even the smelly panhandler on the street corner has dreams.

I absently gather the mail from the mailbox and balance it in the same hand that is holding my drink so I can open the door with my other hand. It’s a struggle to fish my keys out of my pocket with gloves on. I swear under my breath when I spill some of my drink.

I never changed the locks. You never returned your key. A part of me still hopes to enter and see your shoes on the shoe rack and your coat strewn across my oversized lovesac.

I make my way across the empty hallway, the carpet dampening my heavy steps.

The softness of the carpet reminds me of the softness of the grass, under the full moon, and us on it, side by side, the first night together, connecting stars into new constellations.

The carpet swallows my footsteps. As this house has swallowed my life.